Posted by “[Judy] had her audience in a state akin to the fever that hyped the Oklahoma land rush.” – 1959 review
July 1, 1930: From “Photoplay” magazine comes this rare look at the Meglin Kiddies, including a mention of The Big Revue (1929), Judy’s film debut.
July 1, 1936: Judy is mentioned in “Variety” and “Photoplay.”
July 1, 1937: Judy got some decent exposure in “Picture Play” magazine.
July 1, 1938: This ad featuring several upcoming MGM films, including Broadway Melody of 1938, was published in the Film Daily trade paper.
July 1, 1939: According to the “Production Section – Studio Size-Ups” section of the “Independent Film Exhibitors Bulletin” magazine for 1939, Judy was to start a film called “Valedictory,” here’s the text:
July 1, 1939: An American “Mr. Chips” has been gathering dust on MGM’s story shelves in the form of a yarn called “Valedictory,” now being dusted as a vehicle for Lionel Barrymore, Judy Garland and Freddie Bartholomew
The “Production Section – Studio Size-Ups” section of the magazine listed alleged upcoming projects at the various studios. Judy’s name appears frequently in mid-1939; later, MGM began promoting her. Her name was also listed for films that had been released, and a few reviews. Here are some more that were listed as projects allegedly planned for her:
September 29, 1939: More about “Good News”:
Judy Garland is another young player to be optioned. Her next assignment will lie opposite Mickey Rooney in “Good News”, under the direction of Busby Berkeley thus reuniting the trio which scored in “Babes in Arms.”
June 12, 1939: Judy Garland in “Looking After Sandy.”
This is a title I’ve never heard of and it’s never been listed in any other documents.
July 29, 1939: “Good News” with Judy, Mickey Rooney, Douglas McPhail, Betty Jaynes, and June Preisser.
December 2, 1939: “Good News” was still news: Paul Whiteman and his band may appear in “Good News”, the next Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland starring vehicle.
Learn more about all of the film projects that Judy was allegedly in the running for and those she began but did not finish at The Judy Room’s “The Films That Got Away” pages here.
July 1, 1939: Filming of Babes in Arms continued with the “Minstrel” number on the “Exterior Barn Theatre” set. Time called: 9 a.m.; lunch: 12:30-1:30 p.m.; dismissed: 5:45 p.m.
Check out The Judy Room’s Filmography Page on Babes in Arms here.
July 1, 1939: Judy’s success was cemented by the fact that the famous New York landmark Reuben’s Delicatessen named a sandwich after her. Unfortunately, the restaurant closed in 2001.
July 1, 1939: “Hollywood” magazine featured this article about the upcoming release of The Wizard of Oz.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on The Wizard of Oz here.
July 1, 1939: Two photos of Judy are featured in this article in “Photoplay” magazine. The article was about the goings-on of the “young Hollywood set.”
July 1, 1939: This article, allegedly written by Wizard of Oz producer Mervyn LeRoy, was syndicated in newspapers around the country.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on The Wizard of Oz here.
July 1, 1940: Filming continued on Strike Up The Band, specifically more of the “La Conga” number on the “Interior Gym” set. Time called: 9:00 a.m.; dismissed: 11:00 p.m.
Check out The Judy Room’s Filmography Page on Strike Up The Band here.
July 1, 1940: Judy in “Photoplay” magazine.
July 1, 1943: Judy made her concert debut at the Robin Hood Dell in Philadelphia. She was backed by an orchestra conducted by Andre Kostelanetz, with her piano accompaniment provided by Earl Brent. After signing with MGM, she appeared on stage in various movie theatres and other venues during promotional tours for some of her films, at industry events, and at army camps, but this was her first in-concert event as an adult. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the concert would consist of Kostelanetz opening with a “Damnation of Faust Suite” by Berlioz, followed by Strauss’s “Emperor Waltz.” Then Judy would come on and sing a program put together by Roger Edens and arranged by MGM’s top musical arranger, Conrad Salinger:
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- Gershwin Medley (“Someone to Watch Over Me,” “Do, Do, Do,” “Embraceable You,” “The Man I Love,” and “Strike Up the Band”).
- Kostelanetz performed a “Symphonic Synthesis” of “Porgy and Bess” arranged by Robert Russell Bennett from the Gershwin score.
- Judy returned with a medley of movie hits (“For Me and My Gal,” “You Made Me Love You,” “It’s a Great Day for the Irish,” “Our Love Affair,” “I’m Nobody’s Baby,” and the complete “Over the Rainbow”).
- Judy then encored with “The Joint Is Really Jumping Down at Carnegie Hall,” followed by a finale encore, “But Not for Me.”
The concert was a triumph for Judy and Kostelanetz. The newspaper reports in the following days were full of praise.
Read more details about it in this excerpt from my book, Judy Garland – The Voice of MGM. More about the book here. Purchase it here.
Ironically, Judy’s last U.S. concert was also in Philadelphia, at the JFK Stadium on July 20, 1968.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
July 1, 1943: Presenting Lily Mars is one of the films listed in this booking chart published in the trade magazine “Motion Picture Daily.” In that same issue is an article that notes the film being extended for a second week in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on Presenting Lily Mars here.
July 1, 1943: Judy in the fan magazines.
July 1, 1943: More Presenting Lily Mars.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on Presenting Lily Mars here.
July 1, 1944: Judy in “Photoplay” magazine.
July 1, 1945: Columnist Sheilah Graham began the (incorrect) legend that in 1936 MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer had given the edict to let Judy go and keep Deanna Durbin. The legend goes that Mayer was so angry over Durbin being let go and finding success at Universal that he “ordered a build-up and good pictures for Miss Garland.” Graham added, “In those days Judy was not only fat, but homely.”
July 1, 1947: Here is one of many news items that featured Judy and her daughter Liza in photos taken on the Pirate set. The news claimed that Liza was making her film debut when, in fact, she didn’t debut until 1949’s In The Good Old Summertime.
Check out The Judy Room’s Filmography Pages on The Pirate here.
Check out The Judy Room’s Filmography Pages on In The Good Old Summertime here.
July 1, 1948: Judy had wardrobe fittings for The Barkleys of Broadway. No photos exist, as these were simple fittings and not costume tests. The session lasted from 11 a.m. to 12:45 p.m.
July 1, 1948: The Pirate.
July 1, 1949: As noted in these two articles published in the trade magazine “Motion Picture Daily” (on April 27 and July 1), the summer of 1949 saw the release of In The Good Old Summertime and the re-release of The Wizard of Oz.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on The Wizard of Oz here.
Check out The Judy Room’s Filmography Page on In The Good Old Summertime here.
July 1, 1949: “Modern Screen” magazine.
July 1, 1952: Judy wrote this letter to a fan who apparently had tried to see her in her recent engagement in San Francisco, California, but missed her.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
July 1, 1954: Filming on A Star Is Born continued on the “Swanee” section of the “Born In A Trunk” production number. Time started: 8:00 a.m.; finished: 5:25 p.m.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on A Star Is Born here.
July 1, 1955: The Long Beach Independent continued its promotion of Judy’s upcoming show (on July 11th) in Long Beach. Advance buzz was that the audience would be peppered with a “who’s who” of Hollywood.
Also during this time, The Wizard of Oz was enjoying a second successful theatrical re-release. The film was leased to CBS for its first television broadcast the following year.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on The Wizard of Oz here.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
July 1, 1959: Judy opened a 10-day run at The San Francisco War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, California.
She added a new, Roger Edens-arranged version of the song “San Francisco” as her final encore, which stayed in her act for the rest of her life (she sang it during her very last concert).
While in San Francisco, a suit was filed against Judy’s show by a group of ASCAP writers and publishers, claiming they weren’t paid for the use of the songs “A Couple of Swells”; “A Wonderful Guy”; and “This Can’t Be Love.” They did this because the venue didn’t operate under a “blanket license” with ASCAP, as did other theaters. Sid Luft stated he had paid for the performing rights.
One review of the show stated, “[Judy] had her audience in a state akin to the fever that hyped the Oklahoma land rush. If they had taken out their uppers, removed their toupees, and tossed them over the footlights, it wouldn’t have surprised me.”
Program scans from the Bobby Waters Collection. Thanks, Bobby!
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
July 1, 1961: Judy was in concert at the Forest Hills Stadium (Tennis Club) in Forest Hills (Queens), New York. A capacity audience of 14,672 attended this performance. Judy stayed at the Forest Hills Inn, where there was a party held after the concert, which she attended from 12:45 – 3:45 a.m.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
July 1, 1965: Judy and Mark Herron attended the premiere of The Great Race at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, California.
July 1, 1968: The news of Judy’s hospital stay and her recent collapse on stage was big news. Judy fell asleep on the stage on June 29th during her final night’s performance at the Garden State Arts Center in Holmdel, New Jersey. The story was that she collapsed from exhaustion, but the truth is that she was suffering from too much medication. She was carried off stage (still clutching her microphone!) and rushed to the Monmouth Medical Center. She left and checked into the Peter Brent Brigham Hospital in Boston to go through a withdrawal program.
Check out The Judy Room’s “Judy Garland – The Concert Years” here.
July 1, 1969: The eighth in a series of articles about Judy published immediately after her death.
The JUDY GARLAND Story
‘I’m Really Only Happy When in Front of an Audience’
By LEO GUILD
JUDY GARLAND has been locked out of the St. Moritz Hotel in New York City for not paying her bill. It was $1800 for one week. They were holding her bags and two kittens for security.
My editor asked me to talk to her. Eighteen hundred dollars sounded like a lot of money for a week at a hotel. I’ve been shocked when getting a $150 bill for a week.
She was staying in the home of a musician friend in New York when I talked to her.
She didn’t seem too upset. She said it would all be taken care of. It always was.
However, because her gowns were under lock and key she wouldn’t be able to open a concert engagement in Boston, and that would cost her money, too.
She was very thin and there were blotted black circles under her eyes. Her movements seemed disconnected as if she didn’t have complete control.
“I’D RATHER NOT TALK ABOUT MONEY,” she smiled. “It confuses me. I have a contract with Group V and they pay all my expenses. You’ll have to talk to them.”
She didn’t seem terribly aware of any details. Judy talked though. Not about money but about everything else.
Would you like something to eat?” she didn’t wait for an answer but instead dug through some opened suitcases on the bed. “Someone gave me some expensive imported cheese from Sweden.”
Her maid corrected her and said it was Scotland.
“Yes,” she said, “Scotland. I didn’t think they made cheese there. But I want you to taste it. The flavor is tart.”
She smeared some on a cracker for me.
“Cheese is good for you because it has what most foods don’t have – pleasure from feel in the mouth.”
She cocked her head on the side for my reaction.
I said I liked it, and she said, “Well, that’s what someone told me. Cheese feels good in the mouth.”
I thought how often she appeared like a child wanting approval. She sat down as if to get comfortable and then got up quickly again.
“WELL, GO AHEAD AND INTERVIEW ME,” she suggested. “I love New York. On this trip, I wasn’t treated very kindly. But cities are like people. Sometimes they are good to you and other times they aren’t.”
She talked about her children for a while.
“I’m so proud of them. I’m often so discombobulated but they, all of them, are so sweet and good.”
I thought for a moment there were tears in her eyes. But she quickly snapped out of it.
“You know,” she said, “I used to come to New York for the plays. But now I look around at the little theatres for those good art movies. Some of them are precious. Let’s see, what was that picture I saw Saturday? Well, I don’t remember anymore but it had a darling little boy in it that had large, round yes and he practically talked with them.”
I asked her about her future bookings.
FIRST, SHE LIT A CIGARET. Then she sipped of a martini and then she brushed her hair before she answered.
“Oh, all sorts of things. Pictures, concerts, albums. I don’t know. They tell me what to do and I do it.”
She didn’t say who “they” was.
“Mos of the script I see are doddering. I want a part with vitality. You know what else I like – old songs. I like to sing and make old songs popular again. It’s like giving birth to a child you love before it’s born.”
Judy seemed more at ease now.
The maid continued to clean up. I found out later she was a combination maid-secretary.
The phone rang and Judy answered it. She laughed hilariously. She put her hand over the phone and said, “It’s Freddie. He wanted to know who I’m destroying now.”
She laughed some and they had more chit-chat about St. Patrick’s Day.
“You damned idiot,” she laughed, “if you wear pink on St. Pat’s Day, they’ll paint you green.”
After a while, she hung up the phone and wiped her eyes of the tears made from laughing.
CHANGING THE SUBJECT, she said, “I have a magazine here I want you to look at. Now, where did I put it?”
She looked around, and then her maid handed it to her. “It’s a German magazine,” she explained. Do you read German?” I didn’t.
“Oh, what shame. Well, it tells of how I am the greatest living legend of the theatre. You know why I tell you this? Because here I am broke in a friend’s house, no clothes and last night I had dinner in my room because there was no one to have dinner with. Do you think that’s a proper reward for the greatest living legend of the theatre.”
She said it without dramatics, matter-of-factly. But she looked sad.
I told her she was deserving of better.
“Ha,” she smiled, “It’s all my own fault. I’m really only happy when I’m in front of an audience. I feel sorry for you newspapermen. You create fancy stories and then there’s no way of peeking in a window to see how it’s received. It’s as if I performed alone in the dark. You’ll never know the thrill of several thousand people applauding a trick turn of a phrase or a dramatic story.”
THE PHONE RAN AGAIN. It was her rent-a-car place that wanted their money for a car she had rented.
“But,” she said, “I don’t have anything to do with money. You have to call my manager. He knows what to do.”
When they persisted, she hung up. She made a gesture of what-is-a-girl-to-do?
“All right,” she said, “ask me questions. I’ll answer anything. Money, too, if you insist.”
I started to ask a question, but she interrupted.
“Have you heard any of my newer albums?” I had. “Don’t you think that my voice is better than it ever was?”
I honestly did think so. She beamed.
“Why shouldn’t a voice get better with maturity. I’m more of a person than I was once, so my voice has improved with me.”
SHE PLAYED ME A NOEL COWARD show tune she had recorded recently. Her voice was full and rich.
“You know,” she said, pensively, “everyone I’m acquainted with wants to create – write, sing, act, paint – and I can tell without seeing what they’ve done how well they’ll do it. You have to be a full person in order to create because what you create is an extension of you. Now someone else said that before me but I believe it – and why does everything you say have to be original? I’ve never seen a dope turn out a good canvas or a smart song.”
A messenger came to the door with flowers. She read the card out loud, With much love and devotion, Jim.”
She smelled them. “how beautiful! But I don’t know any Jim.”
She hollered to the maid, “Who’s Jim? He sent me flowers.”
The maid thought it might be a detective that she had met, but Judy didn’t think so.”
I MADE SOME NOTES and she came back and looked over my shoulder. “What’s ‘Judy intense’ mean?”
I told her it meant exactly what it said. “Let me explain,” she smiled, almost condescendingly. “Jack Benny says when he walks out on a stage, everyone laughs even before he says anything. They’re conditioned. That’s what an entertainer has going for him. You’d be surprised how audiences remember.”
“Now to get back to ‘Judy insense.’ – I’m really not intense anymore. But I have been [through] so much through the years you all think I still am.”
“I’m very relaxed,” she added. “Not intense at all.”
But she was.
Her maid said, “You should be getting ready because you’re meeting Randy for cocktails.”
JUDY MADE A FACE. “He wants me to do a play on Broadway. I’m not ready for that yet. Also, I don’t want to work that hard.”
Something occurred to her. “I don’t think you got a very good interview. Let’s see, you wanted to know about the St. Moritz and how they locked me out of my suite.”
“I don’t know how I can explain it. I didn’t have any money and they want to be paid. There’s no heart in business you know.”
“Would you believe I’ve carried around check in my purse amounting to $150,000 and didn’t even bother to deposit them because I had so much money laying around? But now my money seems to have disappeared.”
“But let me tell you something. I’ll have that kind of money again. And do you think I’ll be bitter about a hotel locking me out? Not at all. I’ll stay at the St. Moritz again if they’ll have me.” She grinned. “And I’ll pay in advance.”
WEDNESDAY: Judy’s throat “dried up” in Philadelphia – and there were bills to pay.
July 1, 2000: The latest issue of TV Guide featured collectible Oz covers, plus a feature article by Gerald Clarke (author of the recently published biography “Get Happy – The Life of Judy Garland”) and additional articles by Stephen Cox (author of the book “The Munchkins of Oz”) and Janet Weeks. The oversized version of TV Guide did not feature separate collectible covers. On July 3, 2000, the film was aired uncut, uninterrupted, and free for the first time on TV; previously, when it was shown on network TV “for free,” it was with commercials.
Check out The Judy Room’s Spotlight on The Wizard of Oz here.
I have always said, ever since I was a kid, if I could go back in time to ONE Garland concert, it would the 1943 Dell event. This is because my favorite “Judy Garland” is early to mid-’40’s, when her voice was so pure and youthful. But also because she only did ONE concert during this era. Too bad there are no recordings of this.
Her falling asleep 50 years ago must’ve been a TRIP to witness. For her to just be singing “What Now My Love?”, then fall to the floor??? Sounds more like fainting !
How times have changed. Today, when stars go into rehab, it’s in the hope of quitting. But with Judy, it was just to detox, so she could prepare to start her “medication” all over again. Very, very sad.
Thanks for another great offering! Love that color magazine pic of Judy in the print dress from ’43. Interesting that Judy didn’t sing one song from her current “Presenting Lily Mars.” Both “Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son”, and the lovely “When I Look at You” would’ve been welcome. She never sang these on radio OR recorded them for Decca either – her only MGM picture thus far to not have ANY commercial recordings! Odd.
In reply to Gary Bennett’s remarks about not recording any Lily Mars songs for Decca, unfortunately the timing for that coincided with a nationwide musicians strike in 1943 which specifically excluded recording for phonograph records. Concerts and radio shows were not affected, nor was the recording of soundtrack music for films. Even Sinatra was forced to make a couple of records using only a choral background instead of musical instruments. By the time the strike was over, Judy had progressed from Lily Mars to Girl Crazy and was able to record those songs for Decca. This is my own conjecture, but Decca probably also probably forbade her to sing the Lily Mars numbers in the concert since they weren’t going to influence people to buy records.